What Can I Tow?

“What can I tow?” and “Can I tow that?” (with my truck, SUV, car, minivan) are two of the most common questions that people have. A slightly worse question is, “I’ve bought this trailer, will my truck tow it?” because then you’re a little more stuck. But, let’s go with the optimists route:

You have a SUV, truck or van

You are just starting your RV search

You want to be safe and stay within your limits

More times than not, the single most important limiting factor is your truck’s available payload.

Payload is the difference between the maximum your truck can carry minus the weight of the truck. Generally the payload plans for a 150 pound driver and a full tank of fuel. The “rest” of your driver, all passengers and everything you carry eats into this payload number. Whatever is left over is what you can use for tongue weight for bumper-pull trailers or pin weight for fifth wheels. We’ll talk more about all of these things later.

Calculating Payload

There are 2 ways to approach the “What can I tow?” question and both revolve around the weight of your truck and the things in it. For trucks about 2005 and newer, you should have 2 different stickers on the truck – usually on a doorjamb. See below for my stickers from my 2012 Dodge Ram 3500 with dual rear wheels:

Cargo carrying capacity stickerRam 3500 GVWR and Axle Rating Sticker

Approach #1 – Weight Ratings and Getting Weighed

The first sticker showing the Weight Ratings is used by combining that with actually having your truck weighed at a scale of some sort (via a truck stop/CAT Scale or by going to a quarry, dump, etc.). To prepare for this weighing, you should load the truck as if you were going for camping with your usual supplies:

Your driver

Your passengers (with infant/child seats, booster seats, etc.)

Any food, snacks and drinks

Any games, toys, activities and diaper bags for the kids

Guides, maps, travel directories

Firewood, generators, camping chairs, tables, and other supplies

And, of course- your hitch

When you go to the scale, you will get a weight that tells you what your total vehicle weight is. The number on the sticker that is most important to you is the one that tells you what the maximum weight that the truck can handle. This is called the Gross Vehicle Weight Rating (GVWR). You would take the GVWR and subtract the weight of the truck from the scale. What’s leftover is how much you tongue or pin weight you can carry (again, more on this later).

By far, this is the best method as it takes all of the guess work out of play.

Approach #2 – The Cargo Carrying Capacity

The second sticker showing the Cargo Carrying Capacity gives you an alternate way of figuring out your towing capacity. In fact, on some vehicles (like my father-in-law’s Toyota 4Runner), this is all that he has. The number on this sticker that is most important is the “The combined weight of of occupants and cargo should never exceed XXX kg or XXX lb”. From this number, you have to subtract all of the same things that I listed above (driver, passengers, foods, activities, maps, camping supplies and hitch). (Note: most people assume that a 150 pound driver or 150 pounds for each seat belt is already included in this number. I was just reading the Owner’s Manual for my truck and it didn’t make any such claims. I was kind of surprised.) Again, what is left over is what you can carry in tongue or pin weight.

Ok, now I know my payload – what does it mean?

Knowing your remaining payload capacity is paramount to knowing how much camper that you can tow and stay within your vehicle’s limits. The RV connects to your truck via a hitch – either a bumper pull or a fifth wheel. This connection puts weight onto the back of your truck and has to be accounted for. That’s why we did all of the measurements up above – we wanted to ensure that you had enough leftover payload to handle this weight. For a bumper-pull (travel trailer, pop-up camper, hybrid or A-frame), this is called tongue weight. For a fifth wheel, this is called pin weight.

For bumper-pulls, you’re generally targeting 13% to 15% of the camper’s total weight to make the RV behave best. For fifth wheels, you’ll generally find 20% – 25% of the camper’s total weight is pushing down in the bed of the truck.

Which Trailer Weight to Use

When you walk through a RV dealership, or go to a show, or look at a brochures – you see big signs plastered everywhere that say, “This camper weighs X lbs!” When push comes to shove, this is generally the “unloaded vehicle weight” (aka- “dry weight”) of the camper. Meaning it’s usually before options are added or necessities like propane and battery(ies) are added. And, of course – it’s impossible for them to know how much stuff that you’re going to add (clothes, linens, toiletries, food, pillows, camping gear, you name it). The true and unchanging number is the maximum weight that the camper is allowed to weigh called the “gross vehicle weight rating” (GVWR). Basically, if you’re safe for the GVWR, you’re safe for anything less than that.

(Note, many manufacturer’s websites aren’t as up-to-date or filled-in as we’d like. Many times, they show “TBD” for the GVWR but do show values for the “unloaded vehicle weight” and “cargo carrying capacity”. You can deduce the GVWR by adding these two values together.)

To calculate the tongue weight, you should take the GVWR and multiply it by .12 and .15 and that is your range of what your tongue weight could be, at most. Note, my calculators do this for you.

To calculate the pin weight of a fifth wheel, you do the same only with different multipliers. You should take the GVWR and multiple it by .2 and .25 and that gives you your range. Note, my calculators do this for you.

You need this tongue/pin weight number to be less than your vehicle’s remaining payload.

Real-world Scenario

I have blogged about helping my father-in-law figure out the real towing capacity of his Toyota 4Runner. Read now…

[…] I read through a lot of websites to try to figure out what our car can handle and I found this one was the most straight-forward in terms of actually explaining what everything means: http://learntorv.com/what-can-i-tow/ […]

I think you’re referring to the “myliferving” link where Kat mentions “Most smaller RVs have at least three 35-gallon tanks.”. The math basically works out – (35 * 3) * 8 = 840 lbs. and that is “almost 1,000 pounds”. In the grand scheme of things, I think Kat did a good job of talking about some of the limitations of towing with a smaller truck/SUV and the “lite” trailers that are out there. I wouldn’t focus on that one little part. Sure she found the Jayco to her liking, but I didn’t see where she was pushing the brand – just seems like the one she picked for an example (and did/will? buy because it works for her).

I’m not the greatest one to answer this, but from what I understand is that it doesn’t. It just redistributes the same weight to the front truck axle and the camper’s axle. But, that the end of the day, you’re still carrying the same amount of tongue weight.

It really comes down to what the Gross Vehicle Weight Rating (GVWR) of the truck is and what your truck weighs when you’re loaded to camp. For instance, looking at this CarMax page, it looks like the GVWR is 6,200 lbs. The difference between that and your loaded weight (driver, all passengers, cargo in the cab and cargo in the truck bed) is what is available for tongue weight. Whatever is left over can be 10-15% of a trailer’s weight. Find out what that GVWR is and then go weigh the truck at a truck stop to get the best answer of what your 2006 GMC pickup can tow.

We run all of our drinking water through our Berkey Water Filter. In the old camper, it stayed outside in the outdoor kitchen. In...

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